Bosnia and Herzegovina / Republika Srpska
I spent last week travelling through the country widely known as Bosnia but which consists of two entities, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska. I went through small villages like Chvaljina, which are stunning to look at but are also a reminder of the destruction that the war, which started in 1992 and ended in 1995, left in this country. People have started to rebuild the stone houses in the last 5 years. Older people who escaped from the war stricken urban areas to neighbouring countries in the nineties are now going back to the villages where they come from originally and which they left in the sixties to find work in the towns. People who were refugees and spent 20 years in Western Europe are starting to come back and open small businesses wanting to show the Bosnia they remember to people who want to visit.
It is a story of a country trying to come back to normality, Mostar these days is a tourist centre with a recently opened 4 star hotel that you could easily find in London or Berlin. Sarajevo is a capital with dozens of B&Bs and restaurants full of people including tourists even in April, but then there is Pochitelj, a picture postcard town which is relaxed and empty. The staff of the main restaurant in Pochtelj doesn’t mind if we park our trailer in front of it for the night. It feels like camping in a fairy tale, surrounded by 16 century Ottoman architecture buildings.
The canyon of the river Neretva is one of the longest and most pristine in Europe and leads to the town of Konjic, another unique find for me on this trip. It has a mixture of Ottoman and modern architecture and is very welcoming.
Nearby is Borachko Lake, a place where you can relax from every day stress, hike and enjoy white water rafting. You can also see marked mine fields along the hiking trails. Even in nature there is a reminder of the recent war, but there are also people who are mountain biking and hiking and a new road is being built to speed up the connection between Mostar and Konjic.
I joined a group of journalists and artists who were visiting Tito’s bunker. Finished in 1974, it was supposed to provide shelter for the Yugoslav leader and the Elite in case of a nuclear attack. 300 people could live there for up to six months. It is an underground town built to sustain a nuclear attack 4 times the strength of the bomb thrown on Hiroshima.
The bunker almost got blown up on the orders of Ratko Mladic (currently on trial in The Hague for war crimes), but was saved by a Serb who took the order from Mladic but did not pass it on.
Today it is a space for international artists exhibiting work inspired by conflicts and fears of nuclear attacks typical for the cold war period of the 20th century.